Fwd: Today's Falcon 9 rocket launch is a Florida first

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: November 25, 2013 10:57:11 AM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Today's Falcon 9 rocket launch is a Florida first

 

 

Today's Falcon 9 rocket launch is a Florida first

Liftoff set for 5:37 p.m. is a potential game-changer for SpaceX

Nov. 25, 2013 8:02 AM      

Space X Prepares to Launch Satellite: A SpaceX rocket carrying a communications satellite prepares to launch Monday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Gavino Garay reports.

Written by
James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY

 

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Elon Musk, CEO and chief designer with SpaceX, speaks at a media gathering Sunday at Marlins Good Time Bar & Grill on the Cocoa Beach Pier. / Tim Shortt/FLORIDA TODAY

TODAY'S LAUNCH

Rocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1
Launch Complex: 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Payload: SES-8 commercial communications satellite
Window: 5:37 p.m. to 6:43 p.m. EST
Weather: 80 percent "go"
Live: Launch coverage at floridatoday.com

A new SpaceX rocket will attempt its "toughest" mission today with a twilight launch of a type of satellite rarely seen around here anymore — one not owned by the U.S. government.

The planned 5:37 p.m. liftoff would be the company's first of an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, after a test launch in California, and the first launch of a commercial communications satellite from Cape Canaveral in four years.

The Falcon 9 has sent several spacecraft to the International Space Station about 250 miles up, but never placed a communications satellite in the orbit where they operate more than 22,000 miles above the equator.

Today's launch for Luxembourg-based SES, one of the world's largest operators of communications satellites with 54 already in orbit, could establish SpaceX as a lower-cost player able to recapture commercial launches all but lost to overseas competitors.

"Let me put this very clearly and maybe not too dramatically: The entry of SpaceX into the commercial market is a game-changer," said Martin Halliwell, chief technology officer for SES. "It's going to really shake the industry to its roots."

SpaceX, for its part, is grateful SES took a chance on being the Falcon 9's first customer to a geostationary orbit, where satellites match the speed of Earth's rotation and so appear from the ground to stay in a fixed location.

"This launch is obviously very important to the future of SpaceX," CEO Elon Musk told reporters at a pre-launch reception Sunday at Marlins Good Times Bar & Grill on the Cocoa Beach Pier, before taking his kids to Disney World. "We're very appreciative that SES would place a bet on SpaceX here."

Earlier on Twitter, Musk said the upcoming flight "will be toughest mission to date."

The launch of the SES-8 satellite will be the second flight of the upgraded Falcon 9, known as "version 1.1," which stands 224 feet tall and fires Merlin engines that generate 1.3 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, among other changes.

A Sept. 29 test flight in California completed its mission, but an optional restart of the rocket's upper stage engine — a maneuver necessary for this mission — failed.

SpaceX determined that an igniter line froze, and believes added insulation will prevent a repeat.

 

Musk and Halliwell both expressed strong confidence that the problem has been resolved.

 

"There's no stone that hasn't been turned over at least twice to maximize the possibility of success," said Musk, noting there is still risk given the rocket is launching for just the second time. "The rest will be up to fate."

 

Unlike the flight in California, SpaceX will not attempt to recover the Falcon 9 booster. With the help of a ship in the Atlantic, data on the booster's atmospheric re-entry will be collected to support future recovery attempts, possibly as soon as the next launch from Cape Canaveral, planned before Christmas.

 

SES would not disclose the cost of this launch, but said it is receiving a discount as the first to go with Falcon 9 for this type of mission, which SpaceX advertises online for $56.5 million.

 

SES last launched from the Cape in 2007 on an Atlas V, and Halliwell said it was the cost of available rockets, not the Cape nor its facilities, that had led the company to choose European or Russian launch vehicles instead.

 

He said SpaceX's lower costs were enabling SES to pursue emerging markets that require complex satellites to provide a variety of services, including TV channels and broadband Internet, but generate lower revenues than more developed markets.

 

"If you then put that complex, expensive satellite on top of a very expensive launch vehicle, than the entire business case starts to become unraveled," he said.

 

The roughly 7,000-pound SES-8 satellite, built by Orbital Sciences Corp., is expected to serve Southeast Asia for at least 15 years, beaming TV channels directly to homes in India, Vietnam and other countries.

 

It will fly close to another SES-owned satellite, and serve as a bridge to a larger one planned to serve the same region.

 

"It's an extremely important satellite for us," Halliwell said. "This is a big, big growth market for us."

 

SES already has three more launches under contract with SpaceX.

 

Said Halliwell: "I think this is (the) first of many, many successful launches that we're going to have out of the Cape here, and I think it's going to be very good for the entire district."

 

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.

 

Copyright © 2013 www.floridatoday.com. All rights reserved. 

 

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SpaceX poised for high-stakes comsat launch

11/24/2013 10:25 PM 

By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

SpaceX, the upstart rocket company owned by tech maverick Elon Musk, faces what might be its biggest challenge Monday with the launch of a costly communications satellite aboard an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket, the company's first commercial flight requiring a make-or-break second-stage restart in space to put the payload onto the proper trajectory.

Tens of millions of dollars cheaper than major competing launchers, the redesigned Falcon 9, making its first operational launch after a test flight in September, represents a potentially attractive alternative in an industry dominated by larger, more traditional companies fielding more expensive rockets.

An upgraded SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket takes off from California in September on a test flight that set the stage for Monday's launch of a commercial communications satellite. SpaceX hopes to capture a share of the commercial launch market with its low-cost rockets. (Credit: SpaceX)

Those rockets have long flight histories and, despite the occasional failure, a demonstrated reliability and well understood performance. With Monday's launching and subsequent flights, SpaceX hopes to show skeptics its lower-cost rockets not only can compete on the high frontier, but eventually capture a significant share of the commercial launch market.

"Let me put this very clearly," said Martin Halliwell, chief technology officer of SES, the Luxembourg-based company that decided to risk its SES-8 satellite on the first operational flight of the upgraded Falcon 9. "The entry of SpaceX into the commercial market is a game changer. It's going to really shake the industry to its roots. We're very excited to be a part of this."

SpaceX already made a name from itself winning a $1.6 billion NASA contract to launch supplies to the International Space Station, following up with a series of successful test flights and two operational cargo delivery missions. A third is on tap in February. SpaceX also is competing for a NASA contract to build a manned version of its Dragon cargo ship.

To muscle in on the commercial launch market, Musk needed to upgrade his Falcon 9 rocket to meet the needs of civilian communications satellites. And he needed a satellite owner willing to take a risk on a new booster from a company with a short track record and a non-traditional approach to rocket building.

SpaceX took care of the first requirement itself, equipping its Falcon 9 rocket with lighter, more efficient engines, longer propellant tanks, a new nose cone fairing, a triply redundant computer system and other upgrades that also will be needed for eventual manned flights.

As for the second, SpaceX found an enthusiastic partner in SES, one of the largest satellite operators in the world with a fleet of 54 relay stations.

"This is our 55th launch, so we know a little bit about launching satellites," Halliwell said. "We see these guys as a very key player. I think all the other launch vehicle providers are looking with great interest to the success, or not, of this launch, and I think they will be ... rather worried for their future and how they organize themselves, they're industrial processes, to be competitive in the commercial launch market of the future."

Speaking with reporters Sunday at a pre-launch gathering in Cocoa Beach, Musk warned that rocket flights are inherently risky, but "whether or not this launch is successful, I'm confident we will certainly make it on some subsequent launch."

"I don't want to tempt fate ... but I think it's going to have a pretty significant impact on the world launch market and on the launch industry because our prices are the most competitive of any in the world," he said.

If SpaceX can deliver, the company's competitors "will have to improve their designs and really strive to have next-generation rocket technology," Musk said. "So I think SpaceX could be a powerful forcing function for the improvement of rocket technology. Not just the stuff we do ourselves, but in that we will force other rocket companies to either develop new technology that's a lot better or they have to exit the launch market."

Or, Halliwell added, "they have to improve their industrial process very, very significantly, and that's really where SpaceX has rocked the show."

The 224-foot-tall Falcon 9 is scheduled for liftoff from complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 5:37 p.m. EST (GMT-5) Monday. Forecasters are predicting an 80 percent chance of acceptable weather.

Mounted inside a protective nose cone is a 24-transponder GEOStar 2 relay station built by Orbital Sciences Corp., a state-of-the-art communications satellite that will join another SES comsat already in orbit to provide direct-to-home television, broadband internet and other services to India and southeast Asia.

The satellite is valued at around $100 million. The exact cost of the upgraded Falcon 9 rocket is not known, but the company website advertises prices between $56.5 million and $77.1 million.

For comparison, a Russian-built Proton rocket, marketed by International Launch Services, a U.S. subsidiary of Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, is believed to sell for around $100 million. A heavy-lift Ariane 5, marketed by the European consortium Arianespace and typically used to launch two satellites at a time, is believed to run around $200 million to $225 million per rocket.

This is only the second launch of an upgraded Falcon 9, known as version 1.1, following a test flight in late September. That mission successfully delivered a Canadian research satellite to low-Earth orbit, but a test to restart the second stage engine -- a requirement for launching large communications satellites -- failed.

Musk told reporters Sunday the problem turned out to be relatively easy to fix. He said a fluid feed line to the engine's igniter froze up, the result of low temperatures in space and the effects of a nearby liquid oxygen line. The problem was corrected by adding insulation and ensuring the cold oxygen could not impinge on the feed line.

Halliwell said his company had no second thoughts about putting its latest satellite on board the Falcon 9 v1.1 for the rocket's first commercial flight.

"There was a lot of criticism when we went with this rocket, yeah, it's never done this, it's never been to geo, it's never launched commercial, etc., etc.," he told CBS News. "But you'll remember back in 1996, we had a very similar situation when we were the first people to fly the Proton. You know how that story panned out, and I think we're going to have the same situation with SpaceX. We look behind us and we've got a queue of people lining up to sign with SpaceX."

To launch heavy communications satellites into the elliptical transfer orbits they require to reach a "geostationary" perch 22,300 miles above the equator, upper stages must fire at least twice: once to complete the climb out of the dense lower atmosphere and then again to raise the high point of the orbit to the operational altitude or, depending on the satellite, much higher.

For the SES-8 launch, the SpaceX booster must place the 3.2-ton satellite into an elliptical "super-synchronous" orbit with a low point, or perigee, of 183 miles and a high point, or apogee, of around 53,748 miles.

Assuming a successful launch, the satellite's own propulsion system will be fired five times between Wednesday and Dec. 6 to lower the apogee, raise the perigee and fine-tune the orbital plane to reach the desired target 22,300 miles above the equator at 95 degrees east longitude.

Once on station, SES-8, like all geostationary relay stations, will take 24 hours to complete one orbit and thus appear to hang motionless in the sky as viewed by fixed antennas on the ground. The satellite is expected to enter service in early January.

The SES-8 communications satellite, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. for fleet operator SES, is seen on station over India and southeast Asia in this artist's concept. (Credit: Orbital Sciences)

"We want to have as many launch vehicles in the marketplace as possible," Halliwell told CBS News Friday. "At the moment, from a commercial point of view, there are only two. You either have the ILS Proton or you have the Ariane 5. Ostensibly you also have (the United Launch Alliance) Atlas 5, but of course it's just so expensive it's not terribly viable from a commercial point of view.

"So really, we were looking for something that would give us the opportunity to be extremely cost effective to orbit."

As for the anomaly that marred the upgraded rocket's September test flight, Halliwell said SpaceX explained the fix to SES engineers, who inspected the rocket's engines. He said insurers also were briefed and "they're comfortable and we're moving forward. We have 100 percent insurance on this one."

The Falcon 9 v1.1 features a variety of upgrades and improvements over the original design.

At the base of the first stage, nine Merlin 1D engines are arranged in a circular "octaweb" pattern with eight powerplants surrounding a central engine. The original version had the engines arranged in a square 3-by-3 arrangement, requiring aerodynamic panels around the base of the rocket.

In the new version, protective panels are positioned to prevent a malfunctioning engine from damaging a neighbor. The first stage also features longer propellant tanks a heat shield, part of an ongoing program to test techniques for eventually recovering spent first stages.

The v1.1 version of the Falcon 9 is the company's first to incorporate a large payload fairing that can encapsulate big satellites. Another major upgrade was a triply redundant flight computer running new software. Before the first test flight, Musk said "you could put a bullet hole in any one of the avionics boxes and it would just keep flying."

Other improvements include a simpler, more reliable mechanisms to connect the rocket's stages, using three connectors in place of nine.

The new Merlin 1D engines feature more efficient fuel injectors and weigh in at under 1,000 pounds each. The company said improvements in robotic manufacturing techniques, along with fewer parts, make the engines easier to build and improve reliability.

© 2011 William Harwood/CBS News

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Falcon 9 rocket's commercial debut set for Monday
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
November 24, 2013

Ready to test the commercial mettle of the Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX engineers are preparing to loft a television broadcasting satellite into orbit from Cape Canaveral on Monday in a mission that could usher in a new paradigm in the global launch services industry.

File photo of a Falcon 9 rocket on the launch pad. Credit: SpaceX
 
With a 6,918-pound communications satellite nestled in its nose, the Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off at 5:37 p.m. EST (2237 GMT) Monday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

The SES 8 spacecraft, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. and owned by SES of Luxembourg, will be deployed from the Falcon 9 upper stage about a half-hour later on a 15-year mission to broadcast high-definition television to homes in India, Vietnam, Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia.

The Falcon 9's first commercial satellite launch is sure to be widely-watched by rocket and satellite operators. Officials with SpaceX and SES say that is for good reason.

"Whether or not this launch is successful, I'm confident we will certainly make it on some subsequent launch," said Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO and chief designer, in a meeting with reporters Sunday in Cocoa Beach, Fla. "I don't want to tempt fate, but I think it's going to have a pretty significant impact on the world launch market and on the launch industry because our prices are the most competitive of any in the world."

On its website, SpaceX advertises launch costs between $56 million and $77 million for a Falcon 9 flight. That is less than SpaceX's chief competitors, the Proton and Ariane 5 rockets, which run about $100 million and $200 million per launch.

Operated and sold by the European Arianespace launch provider, Ariane 5 rockets typically launch two satellites at a time, bringing its price-per-payload in line with the Russian Proton vehicle marketed by U.S.-based International Launch Services.

"In order for the other launch companies to compete, they, therefore, will have to improve their designs and really strive to have next-generation rocket technology," Musk said. "So I think SpaceX could be a powerful forcing function for the improvement of rocket technology, not just the stuff we do ourselves, but in that we will force other rocket companies to either develop new technology that's a lot better, or they have to exit the launch market."

SES is the world's No. 2 commercial satellite operator measured by fleet size, and the firm got a deal after agreeing to be on the first Falcon 9 launch to geostationary transfer orbit, according to Martin Halliwell, SES chief technical officer.

Halliwell would not disclose what SES paid for the flight, but he said the contract value was in the lower range of the price spectrum posted on SpaceX's website.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. Credit: Gene Blevins/LA Daily News
 
"This is really rocking the industry. Everybody has to look out," Halliwell said Sunday. "There are a lot of people who hope that SpaceX is going to fail. If you look towards the Ariane, if you looks towards Proton, for example, I think they are shaking in their shoes. I really do. Because if this is a success, the whole industry is going to be turned upside down. I don't mean this one particular launch, but if it now becomes the norm that this is the type of launch vehicle that is going to be provided, everybody is going to have to look to their cost space and they're going to have to change their attitude as the way to go forward."

Based in a Los Angeles suburb, SpaceX builds its rockets and engines side-by-side in a cavernous factory formerly used to build fuselages for Boeing 747 jumbo jets. Musk established the company in 2002 and has followed an ethos of vertical integration, with the vast majority of each Falcon 9 rocket built by SpaceX engineers.

Until now, SpaceX's success at undercutting the prices of its competitors in the commercial launch business has not been matched by execution, at least by launches into the types of orbits favored by communications satellite companies.

Six of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets have launched to date. Five of the rockets flew under the banner of a public-private partnership with NASA to develop the Dragon privately-owned cargo spacecraft to service the International Space Station, replacing some of the resupply capacity lost with the retirement of the space shuttle.

SpaceX is now making good on a $1.6 billion contract with NASA covering 12 operational cargo missions using Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon logistics carriers. Two of the flights are in the books, with the third resupply sortie set for launch Feb. 22.

But the launch of SES 8 could be SpaceX's most daunting yet.

Monday's launch will be the first time SpaceX has tried to put a satellite into a high-altitude orbit. The Falcon 9 is targeting a sweeping elliptical orbit arcing as high as 86,500 kilometers, or 53,748 miles, above Earth.

SES 8 was prepared for launch inside SpaceX's processing hangar near the Falcon 9 launch pad. Credit: SES
 
The "supersynchronous" transfer orbit puts SES 8 on the way toward its final circular orbit 22,300 miles over the equator. At that altitude, orbital mechanics dictates a satellite's velocity matches the rate of Earth's rotation. Such an orbit is ideal for communications satellites because it allows users on the ground keep antennas aimed at the same spot in the sky.

The liquid-fueled engine on SES 8 will handle the rest of the maneuvers to reach the 22,300-mile-high geostationary orbit, arriving there Dec. 6 for in-orbit testing of the craft's 24 transponders before entering service in January.

Monday's launch comes with new challenges for SpaceX, which has compiled a flight history of six successful Falcon 9 launches in six tries since 2010.

All of the Falcon 9's preceding missions have carried payloads to orbits no higher than 1,000 miles. Boosting SES 8 more than 80 times higher requires two burns of the launcher's second stage engine, and SpaceX's record there is mixed.

On a Sept. 29 test launch of SpaceX's next-generation Falcon 9 - sporting upgraded engines, stretched propellant tanks, a triply redundant avionics system and a bulbous payload shroud - the launcher released its passengers into polar orbit as designed after one burn of the rocket's upper stage.

Purely as a test objective, SpaceX programmed the upper stage Merlin 1D engine to re-ignite a few minutes later, but the engine's computer controller aborted the restart.

"We always knew there was some risk with the restart, so we made sure that on the first mission a restart was not necessary for orbit insertion," Musk said. "On this mission, a restart is necessary for orbit insertion, so there is a greater bar of difficulty for this mission."

Musk said engineers found the problem was in the plumbing that feeds igniter fluid into the engine's thrust chamber. Between the Falcon 9's two upper stage burns, the fluid lines froze.

"What appeared to be the case on the last mission was that the igniter lines froze due to impingement from the liquid oxygen bleed," Musk said. "There's a liquid oxygen chill that occurs during coast, and the igniter fluid freezes at a relatively high temperature. Obviously, what we've done to correct that is to insulate those lines and ensure the liquid oxygen bleed does not impinge on the lines."

The mission patch for the Falcon 9 launch of SES 8. Credit: SpaceX
 
Halliwell said SES engineers were "embedded" with the SpaceX propulsion team over the last two months, tracing the cause of the engine issue and inspecting the repair work on the upper stage assigned to the launch of SES 8.

"It's given us a real feel-good factor," Halliwell said Sunday.

The launch Monday is the first flight of the improved Falcon 9, known as version 1.1, from Florida. The Sept. 29 mission lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

According to Halliwell, the mission's insurers signed off on the launch. "We have 100 percent insurance on this one," he told CBS News in an interview Friday.

SES 8 will be stationed next to the NSS 6 satellite at 95 degrees east, expanding television broadcast programming over South Asia and Indo-China, beaming TV channels into homes for Dish TV, IPM TV and AVG, three major pay TV operators in India, Thailand and Vietnam.

SES says the region is ripe for growth, and a low-cost launch vehicle helps make the business case for pursuing emerging markets.

"We chose SpaceX and we chose to be the first commercial user for SpaceX for a certain reason," Halliwell said. "We know as we go forward into these growth markets, it's absolutely critical that we have a cost-effective and efficient way to get to orbit. That's really what SpaceX brought us."

The fresh satellite will mark the 55th spacecraft to be launched for SES.

"There's still the potential, since it's a new rocket, for something to go wrong," Musk said Sunday. "With any orbital launch, because the passing grade is 100 percent, you can't issue a recall or software patch or something. It's all or nothing. There's always some risk associated with the flight not working, so we're very appreciative that SES would place a bet on SpaceX here."  

© 2013 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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Sizing up America's place in the global launch industry
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
November 24, 2013

The launch of a high-definition television broadcasting satellite by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket Monday will mark the first commercial communications craft to take off from the United States in four years, a gap representative of America's diminished place in the commercial launch market as more affordable Russian and European boosters gobbled up contracts.

The most recent Falcon 9 launch was on Sept. 29 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Credit: SpaceX
 
It's not because of reliability. The Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets operated by United Launch Alliance have accumulated a near-flawless track record over 65 flights since 2002, earning the vehicles a place at the top of the industry.

It's a question of cost, according to Martin Halliwell, chief technical officer of SES, the world's second-largest commercial geostationary satellite operator.

"At the moment, from a commercial point of view, there are only two [launch providers]," Halliwell told CBS News in an interview Friday. "You either have the ILS Proton or you have the Ariane 5. Ostensibly you also have Atlas 5, but of course it's just so expensive it's not terribly viable from a commercial point of view on a nominal basis."

SES hopes SpaceX brings the launches back to Cape Canaveral, Fla., beginning Monday with the liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket with the SES 8 broadcasting satellite.

Before knowing the outcome of Monday's launch, SES has already inked deals for three more missions with SpaceX, including one option for a launch on the company's Falcon Heavy mega-rocket.

Once at the top of the world's handful of launch service companies, U.S. rockets have been hamstrung by rising costs but have stayed busy with a manifest of missions for the U.S. military, NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal government's spy satellite agency.

That is currently a captive market for United Launch Alliance, the company formed in 2006 after the merger of the Lockheed Martin and Boeing rocket fleets, but SpaceX is eyeing a slice of the business.

The most recent Atlas 5 launch on Nov. 18 dispatched NASA's MAVEN orbiter to Mars. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II/Spaceflight Now
 
The Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets were developed more than a decade ago to give military payloads reliable, assured access to space. The thinking was, if one rocket is grounded by a failure, the other launcher would still be available to loft the government's most critical national security missions.

As part of the business case presented by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., the developers of the Atlas 5 and Delta 4, the rockets would also be used by NASA and commercial satellites, ensuring the companies could recoup their capital expenditures.

But the commercial satellite business eroded, startup telecom companies failed to transform ideas into reality, and market forecasts from the late 1990s fell short when the 2000s came around.

Since early 2005, when commercial Atlas 5 launches began to drop off, four commercial telecom satellites have launched from Cape Canaveral. From 1997 until the end of 2004, 34 commercial satellites launched from Florida bound for geostationary orbit, a location 22,300 miles above Earth favored by communications satellites.

Related to the reduced flight rate, rising rocket costs in the United States also stymied the Atlas 5 and Delta 4's potential, with the launchers selling for more than $160 million in the last two years to government customers like the Air Force and NASA.

File photo of an Ariane 5 launch earlier this year. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Photo Optique video du CSG/JM Guillon
 
The commercial business has fled the United States, going primarily to Europe's Ariane 5 rocket and the Russian Proton booster. China's Long March rocket, the Sea Launch program and the Atlas 5 have played bit roles in the market to launch communications satellites.

Industry sources say purchasing a mission on a Proton rocket, which is sold by U.S.-based International Launch Services, costs about $100 million.

Europe's Ariane 5 rocket, run by the French launch company Arianespace, is more expensive, but it is also the most capable of the bunch and has won the lion's share of recent commercial contracts.

The Ariane 5's price tag of more than $200 million can be split among two customers because the heavy-duty launcher has enough oomph to boost a pair of communications payloads in one go into geostationary transfer orbit, the standard drop-off point for large telecom satellites.

SpaceX says its commercial Falcon 9 launches go for as little as $56 million, according to its website. The new Falcon 9 configuration, known as version 1.1, can haul satellites up to 4.85 metric tons into an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit.

File photo of a Proton rocket launch in 2011. Credit: Roscosmos
 
The untested Falcon Heavy, which SpaceX hopes to launch within a year, sells for $135 million and can loft up to 21.2 metric tons into the same orbit, according to SpaceX's website.

Europe's institutional and industrial rocket teams have begun work on the Ariane 6 rocket, a smaller, simplified Ariane launcher borrowing technology already developed for the Ariane 5 and the Italian-led lightweight Vega booster.

The Ariane 6's design is expected to launch satellites up to 6.5 metric tons into geostationary transfer orbit, less than the Ariane 5's capacity in excess of 10 metric tons. In another change from the Ariane 5, it will loft one spacecraft at a time and should cost less than 70 million euros, or about $95 million, according to the European Space Agency.

The Russian Proton rocket and its Breeze M upper stage can deploy satellites greater than 6 metric tons into geostationary transfer orbit, with plans for modest performance improvements over the next few years.

Artist's concept of the Ariane 6 launcher. Credit: ESA
 
Unlike all its would-be commercial competitors, the Atlas 5 rocket marketed by Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services has a modular design. Managers can add solid rocket boosters or a larger nose fairing to match the needs of a specific satellite, giving the Atlas 5 access to a range of payloads from 3.78 metric tons to 8.9 metric tons heading for geostationary transfer orbit.

"I think those organizations make good rockets, but I think with the advent of Falcon 9 we're going to make a forcing function for increased competitiveness in the launch industry," said Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO and chief designer.

"If the other rockets don't improve their technology rapidly, they will lose significant market share to the Falcon 9," Musk said Sunday. "I actually think it's a good thing to have multiple providers of launch, [but] they are going to need to prove their rocket technology in order to compete and I think that's going to be a good thing for the future of space."  

 

© 2013 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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Maiden Next Gen SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral set for Nov. 25

by Ken Kremer on November 24, 2013

Falcon 9 during processing at Cape Canaveral Pad 40 ahead of launch scheduled for Nov. 25, 2013. Credit: SpaceX
See live SpaceX webcast link below

CAPE CANAVERAL – The maiden flight of the Next Generation commercial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the firms Cape Canaveral launch facility is set to soar to space on Monday afternoon, Nov. 25 on a ground breaking mission that will be most difficult ever.

The upgraded Falcon 9 booster is slated to haul the commercial SES-8 telecommunications satellite for the satellite provider SES for SpaceX's first ever payload delivery to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO).

Liftoff is scheduled for 5:37 p.m. EST from SpaceX's Space Launch Complex 40 pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Pad 40 is the same location as all prior SpaceX launches from the Florida Space Coast.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted that this launch of the Falcon 9 will be the "toughest mission to date."

This mighty new version of the Falcon 9 dubbed v1.1 is powered by a cluster of nine of SpaceX's new Merlin 1D engines that are about 50% more powerful compared to the standard Merlin 1C engines. Therefore it can boost a much heavier cargo load to the ISS, low Earth orbit and beyond.

The next generation Falcon 9 is a monster. It's much taller than a standard Falcon 9 – some 22 stories tall vs. 13 stories.

In anticipation of Monday's planned liftoff, SpaceX engineers successful completed a wet dress rehearsal and engine hotfire test this past Thursday.

Spectators can view the launch from local public areas, beaches and roads – just as with any other liftoff.

The launch window extends just over an hour until 6:43 p.m. EST.

Weather outlook is 80% favorable at this time but deteriorates in case of a 1 day delay to Tuesday.

Falcon 9 SpaceX CRS-2 launch on March 1, 2013 to the ISS from Cape Canaveral, Florida.- shot from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: Ken Kremer/www.kenkremer.com

SpaceX is planning a live webcast of the launch with commentary from SpaceX corporate headquarters in Hawthorne, CA.

The broadcast will begin at approximately 5:00 p.m. EDT and include detailed discussions about the Falcon 9 rocket, launch and flight sequences as well as about the SES- 8 satellite.

The webcast can be viewed at; www.spacex.com/webcast

The first launch of this next generation Falcon 9 v 1.1 rocket occurred on Sept 29, 2013 on a demonstration test flight from a SpaceX pad at Vandenberg AFB carrying a Canadian weather satellite to an elliptical earth orbit.

Falcon 9 lifts off from SpaceX's pad at Vandenberg AFB on Sept 29, 2013, carrying Canada's CASSIOPE satellite to orbit. Credit: SpaceX

SES-8 is a hybrid Ku- and Ka-band spacecraft that will provide communications coverage for the South Asia and Asia Pacific regions.

It was built by Orbital Sciences spacecraft, weighs 3,138 kg (6,918 lbs) and will be lofted to a 295 x 80,000 km geosynchronous transfer orbit inclined 20.75 degrees.

Stay tuned here for continuing SpaceX & MAVEN news and Ken's SpaceX launch reports from on site at Cape Canaveral & the Kennedy Space Center press site. 

 

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AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
November 25th, 2013

SpaceX Prepares for High-Jump Falcon 9 Mission to Geostationary Orbit

By Ben Evans

 

The SES-8 communications satellite will be SpaceX's first payload destined for geostationary transfer orbit. Photo Credit: SES

With a launch record that has so far carried it no higher than low-Earth orbit, SpaceX plans a figurative and literal leap in altitude this week, with Monday night's liftoff of its two-stage Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket, carrying the SES-8 geostationary communications satellite for SES World Skies to provide bandwidth-growth capacity in the Asia-Pacific region. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex (SLC)-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is currently scheduled to occur within a 66-minute "window", which opens at 5:37 p.m. EST Monday, about 11 minutes after local sunset. Described by SpaceX as its "First GEO Transfer Mission", the flight will be the first payload ever delivered to geostationary transfer orbit by the Hawthorne, Calif.-based launch services organization.

According to meteorologists at Patrick Air Force Base, there is an 80-percent likelihood of acceptable weather conditions for an on-time Monday liftoff, decreasing to just 30 percent on Tuesday, with cumulus and thick clouds representing a key threat to Launch Commit Criteria. "On Tuesday, the Gulf system approaches Florida with widespread clouds, precipitation and isolated thunderstorms (some possibly severe) throughout Central Florida," the Air Force noted. "There is a possibility that a fast transit of the boundary could bring in acceptable weather conditions towards the end of the launch window." As a consequence, reducing its prediction of acceptable conditions on Tuesday, it was added that "primary concerns for a 24-hour delay are thick clouds, disturbed weather and liftoff winds".

Last Thursday, after a 24-hour delay, caused by weather and technical issues, SpaceX conducted a smooth Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) and hot-fire test of the nine Merlin-1D engines aboard the Falcon 9 v1.1′s first stage on SLC-40. According to NASASpaceflight.com, the latter stages of the test involved an alarmingly high—though wholly nominal—venting of liquid oxygen (LOX) from the vehicle. "Cycling of the vent valve reduced the venting for a short period, prior to it increasing once again," NASASpaceflight.com explained. "Reasons for the increased venting could relate to the high humidity and strong winds in the local area and/or an issue with the vehicle's associated Ground Support Equipment (GSE), specifically LOX ground pumps." The engines were successfully test-fired at 4:30 p.m. EST, clearing the way for the Launch Readiness Review at the weekend.

The Falcon 9 v1.1 boasts uprated Merlin-1D engines and a bullet-like Payload Fairing (PLF) to encapsulate its primary payload. Photo Credit: SpaceX/Elon Musk

In readiness for Monday's opening launch attempt, the Falcon 9 v1.1 team will begin the process of loading liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene (known as "RP-1″) aboard the vehicle's tanks about four hours ahead of liftoff. The process should conclude at T-3 hours and 15 minutes. The nine Merlin-1D engines—which generate about 56 percent increased sea-level thrust than their Merlin-1C predecessors on the earlier v1.0—are arranged in a so-called "Octaweb" layout. Whereas the v1.0 carried its engines in a "tic-tac-toe" configuration, the v1.1 features a circle of eight engines and a ninth in the center. This change increases the Falcon 9′s reliability, whilst also streamlining the manufacturing process.

"The eight engines surrounding one center engine simplify the design and assembly of the engine section, reducing production time from about three months to a matter of weeks," SpaceX explained. "The new layout also provides individual protection for each engine and further protects other engines in case of an engine failure. It significantly reduces both the length and weight of the Falcon 9 first stage." Another benefit is that the Octaweb should enable the first stage to eventually become reusable, allowing it to survive a propulsive return-over-water maneuver and travel to a vertical touchdown at its launch site.

Six minutes before liftoff, the autosequencer will start, after which the SpaceX Launch Director and the Air Force Range Control Officer will verify that all stations are "Go" for launch. At T-60 seconds, SLC-40′s "Niagara" deluge system will flood the pad surface with 30,000 gallons (113,500 liters) of water per minute to suppress acoustic waves radiating from the Merlin-1D exhaust plumes. The vehicle's propellant tanks will be pressurized and at T-3 seconds the nine engines will roar to life. Under computer control, their start-up sequence will be tightly monitored and, assuming the ignition protocol is normal, hold-down clamps will be commanded to release the vehicle at T-0.

At the instant of liftoff, the first stage engines will generate 1.3 million pounds (590,000 kg) of thrust, about 200,000 pounds (90,000 kg) greater than the Falcon 9 v1.0, and will push the vehicle uphill for 180 seconds. Their propulsive yield will gradually rise to 1.5 million pounds (680,000 kg) in the rarefied high atmosphere. "Unlike airplanes, a rocket's thrust actually increases with altitude," noted SpaceX. "Falcon 9 generates 1.3 million pounds of thrust at sea level, but gets up to 1.5 million pounds of thrust in the vacuum of space. The first-stage engines are gradually throttled near the end of first-stage flight to limit launch vehicle acceleration as the rocket's mass decelerates with the burning of fuel."

Powered uphill by the new Merlin 1D engines, SpaceX's Falcon 9 v1.1 undertook its maiden voyage on 29 September 2013. Photo Credit: Robert C. Fisher

With around 1,970 seconds of test time and a lengthy qualification program, SpaceX has expressed supreme confidence in the Merlin-1D. During a full-duration-mission firing in June 2012 in McGregor, Texas, the engine operated at or above the power (147,000 pounds of thrust) and duration (185 seconds) required for a Falcon 9 launch. The Merlin-1D has a vacuum thrust-to-weight ratio in excess of 150:1, making it the most efficient liquid-fueled rocket engine in history. The ignition system for the v1.1′s first stage was tested in April 2013. The stage also includes four extendible landing legs, manufactured from carbon-fiber and aluminum honeycomb, to support a series of tests which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hopes will lead to vertical-takeoff-vertical-landing (VTVL) capability by the latter half of the present decade.

Immediately after clearing the SLC-40 tower, the 227-foot-tall (69.1-meter) Falcon 9 v1.1 will execute a combined pitch, roll and yaw program maneuver to establish itself onto the proper flight azimuth for the injection of the SES-8 communications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit. Eighty seconds into the ascent, the vehicle will pass Mach 1 and experienced a period of maximum aerodynamic stress (known as "Max Q") on its airframe. The Merlin-1Ds will continue to burn hot and hard, finally shutting down at T+2 minutes and 58 seconds, and the first stage will be jettisoned five seconds later. The turn will then come for two "burns" by the Falcon's restartable second stage, which will ignite for the first time at T+3 minutes and 10 seconds. Its single Merlin-1D Vacuum engine, with a maximum thrust of 180,000 pounds (81,600 kg), will burn for 320 seconds to establish the vehicle and SES-8 payload into a "parking" orbit.

A minute into the second-stage flight, the two-piece Payload Fairing (PLF)—a 43-foot-long (13.1-meter) protective cover which encapsulates the SES-8 satellite—will separate from the vehicle. "Like the inter-stage between the first and second stages," explained AmericaSpace's Launch Tracker in its notes for the inaugural Falcon 9 v1.1 launch on 29 September, "a pneumatic system is used to separate the two halves, rather than the traditional pyrotechnics." Fabricated from carbon-fiber and aluminum-honeycomb, the PLF was extensively tested by SpaceX in April 2013 within the confines of the Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility at NASA's Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio, part of the Cleveland-based Glenn Research Center.

The Merlin-1D burns hot and hard at SpaceX's Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas, in June 2012. Nine Merlin-1D first-stage engines and a single Merlin-1D Vacuum second-stage engine will propel the SES-8 communications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit Monday night. Photo Credit: SpaceX

The first shutdown of the second-stage engine is scheduled to occur at T+8 minutes and 30 seconds, after which the vehicle will coast for 18 minutes, ahead of a second "burn"—lasting about one minute—to carry SES-8 into geostationary transfer orbit. And five minutes after the Merlin-1D Vacuum shuts down for the second time, at 32 minutes and 53 seconds after liftoff, the satellite will be released into its 180 x 50,000-mile (300 x 80,000 km), 20.75-degree-inclination transfer orbit. This process will be monitored closely, for SpaceX was unsuccessful in restarting the Merlin-1D Vacuum during the 29 September maiden flight of the Falcon 9 v1.1. A propulsive-return-over-water test is not planned to occur on the SES-8 flight, or on next month's launch of the Thaicom-6 communications satellite, but will be attempted on the February 2014 flight of the third dedicated Dragon mission (SpX-3) to the International Space Station.

Described by SpaceX as its "First GEO Transfer Mission", the 7,100-pound (3,200 kg) SES-8 satellite has been built by Orbital Sciences Corp. and will be co-located with the 2002-launched NSS-6 communications satellite at 95 degrees East longitude. Its primary purpose is to utilize its high-performance beams to support bandwidth-growth capability in the Asia-Pacific region, with specific focus upon emerging markets in South Asia and Indochina. Equipped with 33 Ku-band and Ka-band transponders, SES-8 will also provide expansion capacity for direct-to-home, very-small-aperture terminals and government applications. Operated by Dutch-based operator SES World Skies, the satellite should remain operational in geostationary orbit for about 15 years.

 

 

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